Always be Grateful

by Terri

This Thanksgiving was the first in several years that my oldest son was home for the holiday.  He and his girlfriend have been living in Dallas and it never made sense for them to come home for Thanksgiving when they would be coming three weeks later for Christmas. But they moved back home a couple of months ago so we were all together for Thanksgiving and it was wonderful!  And I was so busy enjoying it (not to mention cooking, cooking, cooking) that I didn’t take one. single. photo.  You heard me right. Not one. Well, there was one.  Taken on my cell phone during an after dinner hike in the desert. 

 

My excuse is that I was so in the moment that picking up my camera never entered my mind. And I’m both happy and sad about that.  Happy that I was really able to focus on what was going on around me, the smiles on the faces of my family, the laughter and the fun.  We watched the National Dog Show and some old home movies (lots of laughter there!) And sad because I would have really liked to have had pictures of our day together. But unless you hire a professional photographer to come and record those moments, you will either be more focused on the picture taking trying capture them yourself or you will miss having the photos. I think I'd rather be focused on the moment. We'll have other photos but we will never have this moment again. "That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet." ~Emily Dickenson

But I am so grateful for the wonderful holiday we had, whether it is recorded in photos or not. So very grateful. I hope yours was wonderful as well and maybe you even managed to grab some photos while you were at it. I hope you did but more than that I hope you were able to be in the moment and enjoy it all.

Let’s don’t stop focusing on gratitude. In the coming month, there will be so many things, large and small, to be grateful for. Even if it’s just a sunny day or a call from a friend. My hope is that practicing gratitude during the month of November will become a habit that will last all year. Our December Monthly Focus here at FOL is “Celebrate the Moment”. That’s exactly what I plan to do!

A Thank You Note

by Judy

Dear April,
Thank you for finally bringing spring to New York.

Thank you for the forsythia.

Thank you for the tulips.

Thank you for the crocuses.

Thank you for the dogwoods.

Thank you for the rain drops.

Thank you for 'spring green.'

Thank you for the pansies.

April, it seemed like you took a long time to come this year, but for all the beauty you have brought to me, I forgive you.

Love, Judy

Doesn't spring seem extra glorious this year?  Many of us struggled through a very long and difficult winter, and if you were like me, you probably even questioned whether spring was ever going to come at all!  But as always, without fail - slowly but surely, tiny buds, green grasses, colorful blossoms and rejuvenating rains came. They really came! Maybe this tedious winter was just a lesson for all of us. Could this winter have been so long and messy just so we appreciate spring even more?

Won't you show us what April has brought to your neck of the woods? Fill our flickr stream with your spring beauty!

"And Spring arose on the garden fair,

 Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;

 And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast

 rose from the dreams of its wintry rest."

-Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Sensitive Plant

Something handed down . . .

by Kim

tradition

noun

1.  the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to          generation, especially by word of mouth or by practice.

Thanksgiving is a tradition in itself, but within this tradition there are many, many more traditions. 

Traditions create bonds, they can give us comfort, and they connect us to our past. They also help to define the uniqueness of our families, no matter how small.

Ever since I've been old enough to remember, there has been a tradition in our family that I look forward to during Thanksgiving, with great anticipation. It goes back at least 3 generations to my Great Grand Aunt Tillie. She always brought the coveted homemade egg noodles, all lovingly done by hand. When she passed my grandmother made them and when she could no longer make them, my mom did.

Unfortunately I have no way of knowing just how long this tradition has been passed down and we don't have her original recipe, but after starting my own family over 20 years ago I think I have it pretty darn close!

My husband and I have continued this with our kids, and have always included them in the process. When I was too pregnant to get close enough to the counter to roll the dough, he took on that job. After the dough rests, I then carefully roll it up and cut them, and the kids unroll them and lay them to dry overnight...it's not only a family tradition, its become a family affair.

Honestly, I could probably do Thanksgiving without a turkey, but it just wouldn't be the same without those egg noodles, which we cook in chicken broth if you were wondering.

So tomorrow, we will be covered with flour (and most likely the floor too), making new memories with an old tradition, and strengthening bonds that comfort not only our senses but our connections to those who came before us.

For this I am very grateful!

Do you have any interesting Thanksgiving traditions?

"What an enormous magnifier is tradition!

How a thing grows in the human memory

and in the human imagination, when love,

worship, and all that lies in the human heart

is there to encourage it." -Thomas Carlyle

On a Foggy Day

by Judy

Sometimes a little fog can actually help clear your mind....

When you can't see far, you start looking inward.

When you start looking inward, you can see what's important.

When you see what's important, you feel gratitude for what you have.

When you feel gratitude for what you have, you find happiness.

When you find happiness, you want to spread that happiness. 

When you spread that happiness, you make other people happy.

When other people are happy they feel grateful for what they have.

When other people feel grateful for what they have, they realize what's important.

When other people realize what's important, they start looking inward....

Oh my, see what a lovely cycle one can start simply by looking deep inside oneself?

"You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

One day last summer . . .

by Kim

One day last summer, at a sunrise . . . 

This I believe . . . there are no coincidences in life.

Things happen for a reason.

I hadn't been to the sunrise in months, and had a really bad nights sleep, but for some reason I felt the need to go on this morning. And this woman doing Tai Chi, she usually goes to the park, but said she felt the need to be by the water.

As I walked by to leave, I wondered to myself if she would mind that I took her picture, and at the same time she turned to ask if I could take hers with her phone. And after talking for a few minutes I offered to snap some shots and send them to her, and she offered for me to join her in the class she teaches for free.

She practices slow movement to revert the core to stillness, to collect energy from our surroundings. Yes!

Two strangers brought together on a not so random morning to help each other . . . and when we said goodbye she grabbed both of my hands into hers and there was just this incredible connection.

Never underestimate and be open to your encounters with others, with strangers. That was my reminder one morning last summer, at a sunrise. 

"Meeting a stranger can be totally fleeting and meaningless, for example,

unless you enter the individual's world by finding out at least one thing

that is meanfingful to his or her life and exchange at least one genuine

feeling. Tuning in to others is a circular flow: you send yourself out

toward people; you receive them as they respond to you."

 - Deepak Chopra

Superhighway to the Marvelous

by Terri

I have always loved taking photos and am so glad to have all the photos of my boys while they were growing up and our lives during those years. They are precious to me beyond words. But once they were grown and out of the house, my photography came to a bit of a standstill. I still took photos of the big moments – holidays, vacations, etc. – but that was about it. And I missed having that creative outlet in my everyday life. I really missed it.  

 But what do you take photos of when there are no kids around, no soccer games or school plays? I had my grand kids but not on a daily basis. I have written before about finding Tracey Clark and her Picture classes and how that caused me to get out my camera again, shooting flowers instead of sports and sunsets instead of school functions. I had never taken photos just for the pure pleasure of it. I was just recording events. But through Tracey's classes, I began to love the process, not just the end result. With my macro lens, I was shooting all types of flowers and other small wonders and once again I was in love with photography, shooting every day and realizing how much it brought to my life.

I recently came across Andrea Scher’s blog called “Superhero Journal” and when I saw the title of one of her posts, “Underneath the mess, everything is marvelous. I’m sure of it.”, well, that was so intriguing that I had to read it. Here’s a quote that really spoke to me:

"Photography is one of my ways in. It’s my superhighway into the marvelous. I see those pink petals against the fog and my heart leaps a little. I look through the viewfinder and get that zing in my belly just before the shutter goes click. Even on the hardest of days, the beauty of the world can pull me back. I can literally see the world through a different lens – one that honors the miraculous. The bright green sprig of life bursting through a crack in the sidewalk, the way the white petals fall like confetti onto the concrete, the impossibly long lashes of my boys."

Photography is a superhighway into the marvelous.  What a wonderful concept! This put into words things that I have felt for a long time, the joy I feel as I look through the viewfinder and how capturing the beauty around me, even though it sometimes is a beauty that only I can see, and how it can pull me out of a bad mood and put a smile on my face. I’m sure you’ve all experienced that. I “see” so much differently now than I did before.

 Andrea goes on to say: 

"For many years, gratitude practices eluded me. I didn’t feel grateful. I just felt ashamed… for all that I was blessed with and how sad I still felt. What I was still able to do however was appreciate beauty. And this saved me. Those glittery beads of dew on the grass, the clouds I found in puddles of water, the inside of a dandelion. They saved me from being swallowed up by grief. When we can catch glimpses into the marvelous, it is a gift. Be on the lookout today. And if you are in a place where gratitude is hard to access, see if you can find some simple beauty. For me, it was the most powerful kind of medicine."

Now I am on the lookout for beauty every day.  And because I’m looking for it, I see it and I’m grateful. Be on the lookout today for even the smallest piece of simple beauty. As Andrea said, finding that beauty is the most powerful kind of medicine. 

Have you been looking? Have you found some small piece of beauty that has filled you with the feeling Andrea is describing? If you are lucky enough to find it, please share it with us in the Flickr gallery. Remember our Monthly Focus this month is "reflections" but we would love to see anything you shoot that brings you the feeling of finding that superhighway. Almost as fun as finding it is sharing it with others!